'Monkey Island 2' was a huge game for me. It kind of taught me all about comedy.
Bryan Lee O'Malley
I'm always exploring other people: trying to figure out myself, trying to figure out everyone.
I don't really picture anyone when I'm drawing. They just become their own completed person with googly eyes.
In my teens and university and stuff, video games became more realistic, or they started to.
I lived in London for a long time, and that's a pretty white town. In Toronto, I just ended up in this circle of indie rock kids who happened to be white, too... Really, it was just when I started getting out there and meeting more people and seeing more fans that I went, 'Oh, actually, I'm not white.'
The first Nintendo game I ever got was 'Clash at Demonhead.' I got into anime and manga thanks to that Canadian classic, 'Sailor Moon.'
I really like the look of old '70s and '80s Japanese comics, so I think that style is something I will continue to draw.
I'm a firm believer in stories with arcs and beginnings and endings and all that. 'Scott Pilgrim' is sort of one long novel, and it's so long that I get confused and sort of tread water sometimes. But there's definitely a goal to it. People who just dismiss it as shallow, that's their prerogative, but it's not really my intent.
'Seconds' is very much about reaching out for the next thing after you've figured out the first thing.
Tumblr culture and the whole reappropriation-without-context thing are a double-edged sword in that they both raise awareness of my work and also kind of devalue it at the same time.
I do get the sense sometimes that if I draw things too nice, maybe I won't be indie-rock enough anymore.
When I was a kid, I desperately wanted more background information on especially cartoonists.
I just have this thing in my head that I want to do serious stories that are still just way too cute and drawn in a really cute, appealing, rounded, childish way, and it's like, I don't know if it makes sense - but it's just something I'm really strongly compelled to do.
After a long period of not drawing, you have to, like, relearn how to draw. It's not very fun.
I'm too young to have experienced firsthand the '70s rock, but when I was in high school, me and my friends were super into Neil Young. That was the grunge era, and he was considered cool again.
Writing music is sort of my hobby, but it's been falling off more and more. Doing comic books takes up my entire life.
When I was in the middle of the 'Scott Pilgrim' series, and it was slowly becoming more popular, though still not financially solvent, I had this real bratty instinct to turn around and do something super arty and dark. I felt dismissed by comics culture, stuck in between the artcomix world and the nerdcomix world, and I was cranky about it.
'Seconds' is all about spaces, and I guess spaces are kind of like people in that they can be haunting and alluring before we even really get to know them, and after prolonged exposure, they can become mundane or oppressive.
The places I've been, or passed through, or seen at a distance, have had as much an impact on my life as the people I've known.
I don't really have a metaphor for how I write, but it kinda feels like chipping away at a big dark object that I can't really see.
Each new book that comes out kind of pulls up the old ones a little bit. The new releases are always going to bolster the old releases.
I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.
I just don't think I can write someone drastically younger than me.
I guess I've always been kind of obsessed with food. I always liked drawing food, and I always liked stories - I think I probably just read somewhere that stories are better if someone's eating in them. I don't know where that came from, but it really stuck, and I always try to put food in.
Doubt yourself all you want, but you have to make choices in life and live with them.
I grew up in London, Ontario, and moved to Toronto when I was 22 or 23.
For Hollywood to make 'Spider-Man,' only to redo the movie a couple years later, just boggles the mind. To recast 'The Incredible Hulk' for a third time? I don't get it.
I just had this feeling that, if I were to get into a fight, somehow I would have the ability to fight back, just based on playing 'Street Fighter' for so many years of my life. It's almost like I actually learned martial arts.
I think it's natural as you get to the end of your twenties to start thinking about what you could have done differently - whether they went well or whether they went terribly.
There were times over the years when I wanted to take a break from 'Scott Pilgrim,' or even just stop doing 'Scott Pilgrim,' when I was feeling down or whatever.
I didn't expect 'Scott Pilgrim' to be successful. I just made this weird comic to entertain my friends.
I don't tend to cast roles in my head because I spend so much time with these characters and the drawings that they're complete in themselves, you know what I mean?
'Seconds' is grounded in the reality of this restaurant environment, and I did do plenty of research, so there's that. It takes place in a town that is like a kinder, gentler fairy tale version of reality. Then it takes off into a story that is very strange, very mental.
Culture is evolving, and I'm along for the ride.
I've always been open to the idea of an adaptation that does its own thing, that freely diverges from the original as long as it's true to the spirit.
I've had so many little ideas I've written down here and there. Some ideas I've got reams of notes for.
I've certainly played games that provoked a real emotional response or serious thought processes.
I don't think anyone ever sets out to make a crappy movie, but there are a lot of forces working against those people who are trying to make something decent. There are a lot of fine lines to walk and small battles to fight.
Seeing people cosplaying my characters is always a blast.
